Columnists Archives - Page 34 of 78 - Inside World Football

David Owen: Anatomy of a World Cup qualifying competition

Heading to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup? Apprehensive about the demonstrations and logistical nighmares that might lie in wait for you? May I make a suggestion: pack a copy of James Montague’s kaleidoscopic new book Thirty-One Nil.

It will remind you that, however trying your current circumstances, things could be worse, while articulating, in a succession of scrupulously observed national tableaux, why you made the effort in the first place.

Not that the author makes a meal of his discomfort,

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Counting the cost of the World Cup

As we edge closer to the start of the World Cup finals, my thoughts have nothing to do with the usual questions, like which team is likely to lift the trophy or the players that will distinguish themselves in Brazil and earn a deserved place in the tournament’s pantheon of legends.

What has preoccupied me is the consistent fury of working-class and under-privileged Brazilians, about the money being spent on hosting the World Cup.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Premier League transfer volcano looks primed to erupt

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“Anyone who lives within their means suffers a lack of imagination.” Oscar Wilde

A lack of imagination is not football’s affliction. This game gives flame to our childish dreams. The nine-year-old Aberdeen fan Boyd Gibson, who submitted a transfer wish list to his club requesting they purchase such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovich, Gareth Bale and Lionel Messi, was only echoing the boyish fantasies that consume every one of us at times.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Politicians shun Europe but Levy loves the continental ways

Much has been made about how Mauricio Pochettino is the ninth permanent manager Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has appointed since he took charge of the club back in 2001. And the scribes have not failed to rub in the fact that, despite all these comings and goings, Spurs have singularly failed to achieve the status that they feel is their due, at least a top four finish in the Premier League every season, garnered with the odd trophy as well.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Ronaldo cracks open a six-pack for debate

If you want everyone to look at you, you had better be worth it.

Cristiano Ronaldo was adoring himself too much to consider his Champions League final goal from the penalty spot was mere icing on the cake. But while this chapter of club success was complete, his season is not. The World Cup could still bring him down if he’s not careful.

In behaving like that in Lisbon, shirt off,

Andrew Warshaw: Are the have-nots always destined to not have?

Football, as we know, is often all about fine margins. Just ask Atletico Madrid. Whilst no-one can possibly condone the ridiculous behaviour of their otherwise admirable coach Diego Simeone when he lost his cool as victory slipped agonisingly away in Lisbon’s Stadium of Light last weekend, let’s not underestimate what the Spanish capital’s so-called poorer sister achieved over the season as a whole.

Real Madrid finally collected their 10th European crown after 12 years of pain –

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why the Champions League is glorious but UEFA’s powers are limited

Whether or not Real Madrid achieve their cherished goal of Decima tomorrow, which would mark the tenth time they have won Europe’s premier club competition, the Champions League Final in Lisbon once again emphasises that in all of world football’s many club competitions, spread across the various continents, nothing comes close to matching the glory of winning this coveted European trophy. It may be a competition that only European clubs participate in but not only do players from all over the world take part but,

Massimo Cecchini

Massimo Cecchini: Less is more for Serie A as it starts a diet

Che noia la Serie A: Meglio Metteral a dieta

Evviva, il campionato di Serie A è finito! La Juventus ha vinto con 102 punti, macinando record su record e lasciando la seconda in classifica, la Roma, a 17 lunghezze di distanza. Non basta. Anche la stessa Roma ha fatto registrare diversi primati storici, senza contare che – grazie ai suoi 85 punti – in due stagioni su tre avrebbe vinto lo scudetto.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: World wide Webb tackles racism his way

Jeffrey Webb knows it should be harder to find examples of racism in football

While in London to speak at an event marking 20 years of the trailblazing anti-discrimination group Kick It Out, yet another example of racism in football reared its ugly, pointless head.

The morning of our meeting in a London hotel, Mario Balotelli had been abused by a group of Italy fans at the team’s training base in Florence.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: FFP Judgement Day tests the work clubs have done

“Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.” Corinthians 3:12-13

When the angel comes out of heaven with the key to the Abyss and holding that great big chain thingy,

Archive

David Owen: Plea bargaining & doping – you ain’t seen nothing yet..

When the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s Foundation Board, whose members include FIFA President Joseph Blatter, assembles in Montreal this weekend, it could helpfully reflect on the kerfuffle stirred up by this month’s announcement of the sanction meted out to Tyson Gay, the US sprinter, in the wake of his adverse analytical finding.

Gay received just a one-year suspension, and a loss of results dating back to July 2012, including an Olympic silver medal,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: England hopes, not expects in 2014

How important is it to you that your country succeeds on the football pitch?

And what would World Cup success mean to you?

The announcement of the England squad for the tournament raised this question for me.

Surrounded by English hype about the Ashley Cole-less 23 I was in a fortunate work position of being able to treat it as simply the latest of 32 squads. Interesting, without it being a major story.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: FA’s stats analysis is as flawed as its development

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.” Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine

Since it first issued from its English womb on a centuries-long odyssey of global cultural conquest, the game of football has been like a scornful child towards its disdained parent.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Dyke’s cure for depression is in his own hands

Greg Dyke says Manchester City winning the Premiership is depressing, given how few English players they have. There is, of course, nothing he can do about how City chooses its team, let alone force the City manager to field more players so as to help Roy Hodgson when the England manager comes to select his squad.

Yet there is one way the chairman of the Football Association could get over his depression. That is by getting the FA to pass a sporting regulation similar to one that many countries have.

Archive

Inside Insight: What does the ‘zero’ in tolerance really mean!?

Lewis Hamilton in Spain, Dani Alves the other week, now Kevin Constant of AC Milan v. Atalanta Bergamo – only a few people who suffered racist abuse by “fans” of Formula 1 and Football.

The list is of course much longer than the three names mentioned above, and it appears that some very sick pigs disguised as “fans” take particular joy in insulting those whose performance gives them fun and joy. One would have thought.